If I Were You
Fantasy Short Stories Collection • Book 1
by L. Ron Hubbard
Why You'll Love This
A circus midget steals a bigger man's body and immediately inherits every enemy that came with it.
- Great if you want: pulpy, fast fantasy with a darkly comic premise
- The experience: quick and breezy — reads in a single sitting
- The writing: Hubbard writes with old-school pulp economy — lean, punchy, no fuss
- Skip if: you want depth or complexity — this is pure genre escapism
About This Book
Tom Little has spent his life looking up — literally and figuratively. As a circus midget with ambitions that dwarf his physical stature, he wants what the big man at the top has: power, presence, the ringmaster's command. When he stumbles upon a way to get exactly that, trading his small frame for someone else's towering one, the fantasy feels complete. But identity, it turns out, isn't just a body. It comes loaded with history, debts, and enemies — and Tom is about to discover that getting everything you wanted can be the most dangerous thing that ever happens to you. Hubbard turns a simple wish-fulfillment premise into something sharper and more unsettling than it first appears.
What makes this story work as a reading experience is its pacing and its pulp-era directness — no wasted sentences, no meandering subplots. Hubbard writes with the confidence of someone who knows exactly how much tension a short story can hold and exactly when to release it. The carnival setting crackles with atmosphere, and the moral weight sneaks up on you. Paired with the bonus story "The Last Drop," this slim volume delivers more genuine ideas per page than books three times its length.
